There wasn’t really anything on in the morning that I really wanted to see, so, recovering from the night before, I sauntered down to the venue at about 11:30 and hung about chatting to people for a bit. I caught Eris Discordia’s presentation on designing Ambulation (more on that later) and then went to try the thing out for myself.

Much of the rest of the day was spent waiting for the Keynote from Hilmar and various other CCP luminaries. It was worth the wait. Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to get a decent seat so couldn’t get any decent pics. The video will be up on EVE TV pretty soon though and others have got some decent footage. Check out CrazKinux’s site for pics and videos.

Over the last year CCP have been more focussed on EVE than in previous years, this is part of a wider strategy to build their core technologies in hardware and software to a point where they can be used for other games (soon™). The next expansion, Quantum Rise, is dues on Tuesday and at first glance may seem to be a bit of a damp squib, I don’t believe this is the case.

Much of the improvements in QR are behind the scenes, in the efficiency and capabilities of the code and hardware. The recent move to Stackless IO (Something to do with hamsters on speed according to one of the CCP tech bods.) and 64 bit architecture (Hamsters with big brains) is part of the Quantum RIse expansion which was released ahead of the content proper so that it could be tested and data gathered on where the bottlenecks are in the server. As a result of these less showstopping improvements lag has been drastically reduced. Jita is no longer the traffic jam it once was, and fleet battles are smoother and less prone to killing nodes.

Quantum Rise also brings in:

• Adjustments to the UI, allowing you more freedom to configure where all the various elements appear on screen.
• Medals which a corp can create and award to its members for whatever they want.
• Certificates which act like a CV telling other players what your skills are and what you can fly (or not, you can hide the certificates from other payers if you choose).
• A new industrial capital ship; The Orca which sits somewhere between a freighter and industrial in size but can fit modules and gets bonuses to gang mining.
• And a whole slew of other tweaks and stuff which you can read about in full here <link>

The meat of the keynote was to be Torfi’s announcement of what is coming in the summer expansion, its going to be huge.

Currently known as ‘True Exploration’ The expansion will focus on new areas of space accessed through unstable wormholes. These will be previously unexplored and undiscovered areas brimming with new stuff and potentially giving access to Tech 3. There will also be ‘epic mission arcs’ Huge branching trees of missions where success in one does not ultimately end in failure, it just leads to another mission on a different branch of the tree. These missions will be used to introduce the unstable wormholes, new scanning techniques, new resources and items and will reveal more of the history of the elder races of EVE.

And then there is Tech 3. Torfi started by showing us 4 slides of concept art for four new Caldari ships, and then things went a bit nuts. He showed us another 4 ships, and another, and another. You could hear the crowd gasp and then a cheer went up as more and more ships were shown on the big screen. Thousands of ships, flicking past too fast for the eye to see.

Torfi then explained how this was possible. Tech 3 ships will be modular in design, with 5 types of modules each having 5 tiers. A total number of 3125 combinations.  Each module will have its own attributes and bonuses, some will have more turret slots whilst others concentrate on tracking speed, powergrid, armour, and any other ship attribute you may care to name. The modules will also be hotswappable, meaning that you are not stuck with the one configuration once you put it together, you can change modules out depending on the role that the ship needs to play. Its going to bring a whole new tactical and strategic depth to fleet combat and I can’t wait.

The final big reveal was the announcement of the date for next year’s ’summer’ expansion: March 10th. We’ll be getting this in 4 months, not only that but it will be available in a retail box for the first time since 2003. Current players will not be charged for it, neither will those who still go down the digital distribution route (the current online distribution method will remain unchanged), but it will bring EVE to a wider audience exposing those who would not necessarily know about it to the greatness of the best Sci-Fi MMO out there.

So Tech 3, epic mission arcs, unstable wormholes, modular ship design and lots more stuff, not coming Soon™, but coming in March next year. After that, Ambulation, and then? Who knows?

Then there was the party, and what a party it was. Roxor played a blinding set and much beer was consumed. The party closed at about 2 because we drank them dry and many people went into the center of Reykjavik to continue the festivities. A good time was had by all and many new friends were made. A huge thank you and big hugs go out to Maggi, Sven, Arend, Nils, Gita, Paul, Guy and many, many more. A great week made all the greater by your hospitality, warmth and generosity. We’ll be back, don’t you worry. A complete selection of Photos of Iceland and Fanfest (some of dubious quality) can be found here on my flickr stream

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More Fanfest posts incoming, watch this space.

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The first item of the day was Dr Eyjo’s presentation comparing The economy of the Chinese server, Serenity (SE), with its larger and more estabished counterpart, Tranquility (TQ). He compared alot of statisics and showed us alot of graphs but the basice point of the excercise was to demonstrate that even though the two servers are completely independent of each other, the same patterns are emegring.

For instance, the busiest system in the game, Jita (pronounced Yeetah), developed naturally as a trade hub on TQ without any interference or engineering from CCP. It just happened. Jita is also the main trade hub on SE, though the reason behind that may be Chinese players reading he forums and playing on TQ and assuming that Jita was supposed to be the trade hub. Not realising that it didn’t have to be.

Interestingly, Pilots on SE are more combat focussed than those on TQ. This may be due to the younger demographic (25-30 as opposed to TQ’s 30-35) but is also indicative of the cultural differences between the two servers. Something I found interesting was that players on SE have set up a safe haven in 0.0 space where anyone can go and rat without fear of piracy. Its controlled and patrolled by players so that newer pilots can get a chance to experience 0.0 without fear of being ganked. A good idea and something which we players should look at for TQ if we want to encourage more players into 0.0.

I also went to both the Walking In Stations talks (I like how even the dev’s say it with a smirk or sneer as if they hate the name as much as I do. Its Ambulation for fuck’s sake) but I’ll be writing about that in a different post after I’ve had a shot of the demo.

Whisper trys to control two teams of CCP employees. I'm told its like trying to herd cats.

The last event of the day was the 2nd Annual Dev Quiz presented by Whisper and featuring teams from QA (Quality Assurance) and the GMs (Game Masters). It had a longer title than that but I’m damned if I can remember it all. It mentioned something about whimsy and elephants. Oh god, how I laughed. These CCP employees are all nuts I tell you. The final round was an Audiosurf contest on a track specially written for the competition by CCP’s own resident musician. The track will be available for download from the EVE website so you can compare your scores to those of the two teams, I’ll post a link when one becomes available.

In the evening my wife and I parted ways to go do our own things. I went looking for a decent pub with good music and found The Dubliner. A nice little Irish pub with friendly staff and a good atmosphere. The evening did not start well, with a shouty Irishman thrashing a guitar and yelling into a mic, I was just thinking that I would finish my drink and go on to somewhere else when he removed himself from the stage and another gentleman took his place.

Oh Yeah, The Girl Can Sing...

10 minutes into his set a girl wearing an EVE Fanfest pass strikes up a conversation with the singer and he hands her the mic. I’m thinking ‘oh dear, someone fancies themselves a bit’ when suddenly a wall of sound grabs me by the heart and lifts me to somewhere else. When she finished her set I went for a cigarette and bumped into her outside. She see’s that I too play EVE and we get chatting. As a result I spend the evening in the company of a few pilots from Romanian Renegades and No Joy. Thanks to you all for a great night out, especially the girl with the voice who’s name was Harry or possibly Harí (I apologise for the spelling but its an Icelandic name and that’s the closest approximation I could come up with.)

If your reading this Harí (sp?) drop me a line with your in-game name as I’ve forgotten it (lost in a beery fog I’m afraid). If all else fails I can probably find you through the No Joy lads who I’ll be joining in Syndicate at some point in the future.

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